Friday, October 12, 2012

I first visited Dogubeyazit in eastern Turkey in February
2007.At that time I made a website to
promote tourism to Mount Ararat (http://www.mountararattrek.com).I managed the website and the email for
reservations.Since 2010, I have been
managing not only the website, but the entire tourism business in partnership
with local Kurdish guides.I am very
familiar with the Ararat tourism culture and people.I spent 2011 and 2012 in eastern Turkey for
the climbing season.

I never met Donald Mackenzie, the Scotsman who disappeared
searching for Noah’s Ark, but I have talked with many who knew him well. I learned about Donald in October 2010, after
he was reported missing. At that time I
began asking Mount Ararat climbing guides whom I personally know if they knew
anything about Donald’s disappearance.

One guide told me the local Jandarma asked all the guides to
look for signs of Donald when they were guiding. They also sent a team of about six guides to
search for him in the area he was last seen.
The guide who told me this, told me he organized the search effort. They looked for one or two days but the
weather was bad. By October the
mountain is covered in snow. Since for
every incident regarding Mount Ararat there are at least three or more versions
of the story, one must take all
information with a grain of salt. This
is a polite way of saying that the guide who told me in 2010 that he searched
for Donald is a known liar. I do,
however, believe him about the search effort.
It is unfortunate that lying, cheating, and stealing are endemic in the Mount
Ararat tourism industry.

The reasons for this subculture are complex. Generally it is driven by poverty, the need
to support large families throughout the winter months, gullibility of foreign
tourists (like taking candy from a baby), and pressure from religious ark searchers
who refuse to accept no for an
answer. The general feeling among local guides is that
Noah’s Ark does not exist on Mount Ararat, but if foreigners want to push money
at them to search, many will acquiesce.
Donald falls into this third category of religious believers and ark
searchers. However, there is another
category of Ararat summit climbers and ark searchers: those who do not want to pay what it costs to
mount an organized, safe expedition.
There are hoards of people in this category which drives guiding prices
down so low that the expeditions become dangerous because necessities are
eliminated, such as knowledgeable guides, water, enough food, cooking gas,
horses, and permits. Donald was an
example of someone who did not have money to spend. After
a number of previous visits, he felt he could climb without assistance.

Mount Ararat is a military controlled zone. Climbing permits from the government are
required for each climber. The use of
permits has been hard to control by the Turkish government. Many tourists are taken to Mount Ararat
without permits. They may pay a guide or
company 50 euro or 50 dollars (or more) for a permit, but that does not
guarantee that the guide will pay the government for it. The normal tourism trekking path to the
summit of Mount Ararat is from the south side.
Donald was not anywhere in this area when last seen. So it would have been unlikely for guides to
find any signs of him on the south side while guiding their tourist groups to
the summit. I was told by the guide mentioned
above that they also searched on the northwest side of Mount Ararat near Lake
Kup.

He told me that Donald had been to Ararat to search for the
ark six times. During one of his visits
he had met a man who lived in a village on the north side of Mount Ararat. They became friends and the man offered his
sister to Donald to marry. Both Donald
and the sister agreed to the marriage idea. According to the story, Donald helped the brother get a visa to the UK and the brother was
reportedly living in London while the sister was still living in her parents’
home in Turkey. I have heard it said
that the father stipulated that Donald could marry his daughter, but could not
take her away to live in the UK.

In the Kurdish
culture in eastern Turkey, it is important for family honor that women remain
virgins until marriage. A woman who
breaks this rigid tradition risks being killed by her own family. The man also may be harmed. This is no longer common practice to kill the
woman, although the family may banish her to another town to live. The people of Turkey, as well as the people of the world, feel it is barbaric to kill
a woman for this reason and they do not in any way condone it. One hears occasionally every year of a woman
being murdered in a village, but it is not reported in the news. One
goes to prison, one goes under the ground.
The local people are just as saddened and appalled as your readers would
be. The Turkish government does bring charges, so murdering women
for having premarital sex (which is not
illegal in Turkey) is by no means condoned by the Turkish government or
citizens.

I have heard no information one way or the other about
Donald’s Kurdish fiancé or their friendship, if any. I assume she is still living at home with her
family. I never heard one rumor or
story about Donald and the Kurdish woman, so I offer this information about
local culture only to give a fuller understanding of the environment. Anything more than that would be unwarranted
speculation and would be unfair to the woman’s family. When Donald was reported missing, his car was
left at this family’s home in the village.

The same guide who told me he organized a search team for
the Jandarma told me, also, that Donald was last seen by a shepherd camping in
his tent on September 28, 2010. The
shepherd descended with his sheep in the evening. When he returned the next day, there was no
sign of Donald or his belongings, so that day Donald was reported missing. This is hearsay which I have not validated.

A guide told me that without getting prior
permission, Donald shipped a box of Bibles to him before his arrival so that
he could distribute Bibles. This guide lectured
Donald never to do that again because it put the guide in jeopardy to be receiving
a big shipment of Bibles. Although
Turkey is a secular country, most Turkish people are Muslim. All citizens of Turkey have their religion
listed on their birth certificates. So
religion, like nationality, is designated at birth. While most of the population is Muslim, that
does not mean that they are all deeply religious.

One of the cornerstones of the Kurdish culture in eastern
Turkey is its hospitality to friends and strangers alike. It is a moral imperative to welcome anyone
who turns up at one’s door. It is not
surprising that Donald made friends, felt at home, and apparently came to love
the Kurdish people and eastern Turkey which drew him back time and again. I have lived and worked among the Kurdish
people in Dogubeyazit. They are my
business partners and friends. Religion
is never a topic of our conversation.
Like young people all around the world, they are more interested in work
opportunities, iPhones, and making FaceBook friends. Eastern Turkey is a region in which I feel
particularly safe and welcomed. I have
no doubt that I could travel as a single woman in all of eastern Turkey and be
welcomed into any house to spend the night.

In 2011, I met an Ararat guide who had previously guided Donald on the north side of Mount Ararat three different times. This guide, whom I will refer to as Arthur to protect his anonymity, became good friends with Donald who attended Arthur’s wedding. When Donald explained to Arthur that he had no money, Arthur
brought Donald to his home to sleep and took him guiding without pay. He also introduced him to a local motorcycle
mechanic who was not a Mount Ararat
guide. On the blog site created by
Donald’s brother at http://ararathunt.blogspot.com there is a photo of Donald on a motorcycle,
so I assume this is why Arthur introduced him to a motorcycle mechanic who then
wooed Donald away from Arthur.

In Dogubeyazit, when one is hungry, there is always someone
willing to say he is a guide and to take a gullible tourist climbing for a lesser
amount of money. We disparagingly refer to them as “street
guides” who are constantly stealing business from the legitimate, experienced
guides.

The last Arthur heard of Donald
was that he was hanging out with the motorcycle mechanic who possibly (probably)
also took Donald climbing on Mount Ararat.
After Donald was reported
missing, the mechanic left Dogubeyazit and was reported to be living in a
distant part of Turkey. In contradiction to this report is the blog by
Donald’s brother who says he was introduced to the mechanic, Moussa, living in
his village near Ararat on September 28, 2012.

In April 2010, a local Turkish guide named Ahmet Ertugrul,
nicknamed Parasut (pronounced parachute), in partnership with a Dutch filmmaker
named Gerrit Aalten, a Dutch film distribution company named FCCE, and a
Chinese organization named Noah’s Ark Ministries International (NAMI) held two
press conferences in Hong Kong and Beijing.
They announced they were 99.9% certain they had discovered Noah’s Ark on
Mount Ararat but that they were keeping the location secret to “protect”
it. National Geographic reported on
this announcement which resulted in worldwide publicity for their claim.

I and others, including Dr. Don Patton and Dr. Randall
Price, have exposed this claim for what it is:
a fraud. See www.mountainararattrek.com/ark
for details of the fraud. Only those
religious zealots who refuse to accept the facts of this fraud still cling to
their belief that Noah’s Ark was discovered on Mount Ararat.

In 2010, when Donald heard about the Parsut/NAMI claim to
have discovered Noah’s Ark above Lake Kup on the north side of Mount Ararat, he
returned to Turkey to search for the secret ark site by himself. Donald
went to Mount Ararat without government permission.

The north side of Mount Ararat is extremely dangerous to
climb. Continual rock and snow
avalanches in and around the A’Hora Gorge area put climbers’ lives in constant
danger. The government does not give
permission to anyone to climb in this area.
Although the government is often accused of wanting to hide the truth by
not granting permission to ark searchers, the more likely reason is that the
government is protecting people from themselves by keeping them out of certain danger.

There is another danger on the north side of Mount
Ararat. The Turkish government and its
Kurdish citizens in eastern Turkey have been in conflict since 1984 when the
PKK was organized. In Turkey it is
illegal to call one’s self Kurdish or to refer to eastern Turkey as Kurdistan. All citizens are Turkish. Kurdistan was christened eastern Anatolia. This conflict dates back to World War 1 when
the 25 million Kurds living in Kurdistan were divided into the four countries
of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Kurds
became minorities in each country. In
1923, Kemal Ataturk, the leader of the newly created country of Turkey,
immediately outlawed the speaking or teaching of their native Kurdish
language. They were to be referred to
as “mountain Turks,” not Kurds. The PKK
is an armed struggle for the Kurdish people to express their Kurdish identity
and receive full equal rights. Many
residents in eastern Turkey view the PKK as their freedom fighters. Over 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in this conflict since 1984. It is hard to find a Kurdish family that has not been closely touched by the death or imprisonment of a relative or friend.

The PKK is said to control Mount Ararat from 2250 meters and
above while the Turkish military controls it below. In recent years, as soon as all guides and
tour operators report to the Jandarma that their last group of climbers is off
the mountain, usually in late September, the military has had military
exercises on the mountain, including shelling it. I witnessed the poofs of smoke myself from
the Igdir (north) side. In 2011, Turkey
contracted with the Iranian military that crossed into Turkey and mounted a
joint operation on Mount Ararat against the PKK. It is foolhardy and dangerous for one to go secretly
on Ararat after the climbing season. A
lone person could be mistakenly shot by the Turkish military or PKK.

The added complexity to asking questions about Donald’s
disappearance and getting answers is that since the PKK is designated as a
terrorist organization by Turkey, anyone talking with them can be imprisoned
and charged with aiding terrorists.
Over forty Kurdish/Turkish journalists are now on trial for reporting on
PKK activities and the ongoing conflict.

Last week a guide friend of mine lamented that he and his
cousin can no longer go partridge hunting on Ararat for fear of being mistaken
for PKK and killed. Partridge season
begins in October. In 2011, when they began their partridge
hunting trip, a huge military Cobra helicopter rose up over the mountain and
circled overhead. There they were with
their shotguns in plain view against the white snow. They hid under an overhanging rock for 15 minutes,
praying they had not been seen, until the helicopter left; then they rapidly descended. Their partridge hunting days on Ararat are
only memories now.

In September 2012, a guide found remains of an old green
army-style tent and gear on the north side of Mount Ararat. While this was quickly reported as Donald’s
missing gear, my guide friend Arthur reports that it was probably an old
military camp site. Bones from food were
found, suggesting this was not Donald’s site since it was uncharacteristic for
Donald to carry meat with him. On the
blog site of Donald’s brother, he shows a photo of a business card of “Colin
McDonald” supposedly found with Donald’s few items and proving it was Donald’s
campsite. I have enough experience to
know by now that it may or may not have been found at the campsite. In this region truth is an elusive concept. The guide who took Donald’s brother to Ararat
in September 2012, also is one of a number of liars who owes me and many others
money. I once asked this guide who I
could trust. He candidly answered, “No
one. Don’t even trust me.”

In 2012, a number of documentary film makers descended upon
Dogubeyazit and also contacted me for assistance in making a documentary on
Donald McKenzie’s disappearance. This
rush of wannabe documentary makers is providing yet a new wave of business
“opportunity” to the local opportunistic guides, many of whom are willing to
take them anywhere and come up with whatever evidence they are seeking, whether
real or fake. Donna D’Errico, American
actress, went twice to Ararat in 2012 and was deceived by two
different guides whom I know. She wrote me, “I now have experienced what you
were trying to warn me about! I should have listened to you, and I see
that now.”

After Donald’s disappearance in 2010, Turkish government
authorities interviewed repeatedly those people who knew Donald. Government officials are aware of where the
motorcycle mechanic lives. There are no
answers to Donald’s disappearance. There
is no evidence of foul play, so how can there be a charge of murder? Did Donald get killed by an avalanche or
fall into a gorge to his death (a more likely scenario)? Was he robbed (of money he did not have),
then murdered? Did religious Muslim
extremists murder him for proselytizing?
Was he mistakenly killed as a PKK member? This will probably remain forever an unsolved
mystery.

Amy L. Beam
is an IT professional who now works in Mount Ararat tourism. She is currently writing her book, Climbing Mount Ararat: Love and Betrayal in
Kurdistan, scheduled for completion in early 2013.